Saudi man being tested for possible Ebola case: MoH

A Saudi man who had been on a business trip recently to Sierra Leone is being tested in Jeddah for possible Ebola virus infection, the Ministry of Health said on Tuesday.
In a statement posted on its website, the ministry said the patient was admitted to a hospital in Jeddah on Monday night after showing symptoms of viral hemorrhagic fever.
It said the 40-year-old patient is in “critical condition” and “had been moved to a tertiary care center with advanced isolation and infection-control capabilities.”
“The source of his infection could be one of several viruses, including Ebola virus because of his recent travel to a country in which there is an active outbreak of the disease,” the MoH statement said.
Preliminary testing at a specialized laboratory was negative for Dengue virus.
“Additional tests are underway to determine if the source of the infection is yellow fever, Alkhumra or another virus,” it said, adding that samples for Ebola virus will be submitted for testing at an international reference lab at the recommendation of the World Health Organization (WHO).
Other viral hemorrhagic fevers are found in Kingdom, no case of Ebola virus had been found so far.
The MoH said this recent case was detected by the Ministry’s surveillance system, which was established within the Command & Control Center and includes real-time monitoring and self-reporting by medical facilities across the Kingdom.
Saudi Arabia had earlier announced that it is not issuing visas for 2014 Haj and Umrah pilgrims this year from Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea.
An Ebola outbreak has been ongoing in Sierra Leone since May and has also affected Liberia and Guinea.
More than 825 people have died to date, making this the largest outbreak of Ebola in history.
Instances of civil unrest and violence against aid workers have been reported in West Africa as a result of the outbreak.
To prevent the spread of Ebola in the Kingdom, pilgrims from other countries will still be checked upon entry into the Kingdom, the MoH said.
Sami Badawood, Jeddah Health Affairs director, also told Arab News on Monday that infected pilgrims will immediately be quarantined and treated.
Ebola is a severe and often fatal disease that affects and kills up to 90 percent of humans infected with the virus.
The Ebola virus is passed to humans through close contact with animals, such as fruit bats, monkeys, gorillas, and chimpanzees, carrying the virus.
Infected patients are highly contagious and pass the virus on to others who come in close contact with them either by exposure to objects that have been contaminated with infected blood or bodily fluids or through direct contact with the infected person’s blood or bodily fluids.

To learn more about Ebola virus, please visit these sites:
http://www.who.int/csr/disease/ebola/faq-ebola/en/
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs103/en/